I’ve decided that Cambodia is one of those places that you simply can’t figure out. It’s part slum, part tourist park, part killing field, part emerging state. After a tumultuous fifty years (some would say many more) Cambodia is starting to figure itself out, and as a roaming college student I took a couple days to try to figure it out, too.

Phnom Penh is the bustling capital. A small four seater cart pulled by a motorbike (a tuk-tuk) is the preferred choice of transportation. Traffic laws (if they even exist) are followed by no one. Pretty much no electricity plus broken and/or no traffic signals equals one perpetual game of Frogger. I saw my life flash before my eyes more than once while trying to get around the city.

As a foreigner in Cambodia you can expect to overpay everything. On my first full day I paid $10 US for a ride out to the Killing Fields (a 15 km jog from the hotel). TEN US$! As a college student I’ve haven’t paid $10 for anything in a LONG time. It is sort of like the amusement park here—they nickel and dime you to death. Although it is a “developing nation,” it is by no means cheap. The Cambodians definitely did that part of their tourism industry right.

There are many interesting and wonderful places to visit around towns. Beautiful temples, interesting markets, and great food stalls (though beware, as a seasoned Southeast Asia traveler, even I had a really hard time with the food stalls in Cambodia) are around every corner.

Just like every city, however, Phnom Penh too has its secrets. The seedy underbelly (though I don’t know how “under” it really is considering how obvious it is to spot) is a thriving part of the informal economy. You have the foreign sex tourism sector, the local sector, the trafficked sector, and probably most disturbing, the child sector. Some sex workers claim their lives reflect feminism, and don’t feel forced at all; others clearly had no choice.

Interestingly, the sex industry is not only patronized by creepy foreign men (unlike other Southeast Asian hubs, the foreign sex tourism is blatant here. You see old Western men walking with two or three very young Cambodian women on his arms every night) but also by locals.

Visiting a local brothel, the girls are lined up outside with numbers on them. You pick them like you choose your Value Meal at McDonald’s. What is even worse is that young children in this industry are prized, for there is a belief that having sex with young children (i.e., virgins) will bring back your virility and give you long life. It is horrifying to see as an outsider.

Visiting the Killing Fields was tough. They are exactly what they sound like…men, women, and children were all taken out to this area after interrogation and torture and massacred by the Khmer Rouge, the regime in power from 1975 – 1979. The early 1970s in Cambodia was characterized by massive aerial bombardment by US aircraft on the eastern border with Vietnam, Lon Nol’s corrupt national government, and a bloody civil war between the standing army and the encrouching Khmer Rouge, the radical communist movement led by Saloth Sar (known by his pen name Pol Pot, meaning “original Khmer”). In this unstable national and regional climate created by corruption and war, the Khmer Rouge was able to gain supporters for their drastic ideology. The regime came to power in April 1975 after capturing the capital city and would remain head until January 1979. In less than five years, more than twenty percent of the entire population (1.5 million of Cambodia’s eight million people) would die or be executed. Commune living; intensive unrealistic argricultural programs; and the near complete eradication of the family, religion, and commerce would become the trademarks of the organization.

You drive about 15 km outside of the city center to a little pavilion … a field … there are birds, butterflies (the various species of butterflies are mind blowing!) … some chickens milling about … it is all fine and dandy. You walk down these little dirt paths around some holes in the ground and you think, “Ok, a pleasant forest preserve.”

And then you start to look.

You start to see little pieces of bones. Torn clothing. Clasps from bracelets. And then you realize you are walking through mass graves. Graves. Hundreds of people killed right below your feet. Fenced off areas indicate areas where particularly gruesome atrocities took place—400 people beheaded and thrown into this pit here; 200 naked women and children killed and thrown over there. There is a sign of the tree indicating where they would smash little babies … from another tree where they would hang loudspeakers to drown out the moans of those in the pits.

A monument has been erected to honor (is honor the right word? remember?) those killed. Inside a large glass box two (three?) stories high are shelves and shelves of skulls … of people. You walk around the tower and there are empty voids staring at you. These skulls with no lower jaws are silently screaming at you. The looks of horror seem to have permeated their bones. There is nothing I could do but pray. Pray for them to find peace. Pray for forgiveness that no one stopped this. Pray for an explanation.

These are the Killing Fields.

Cambodian land-mine victim Yan Lay, holding her baby, looks at the mine-action exhibit during a September 2003 meeting in Bangkok of the states party to the Mine Ban Treaty. There are some 50,000 amputees in the country, victims of landmines set during the time of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, and some 6 million mines may remain in the country.

Cambodia is just one of those places that you simply can’t figure out.